


brother, killer, friend

by dumbkili



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, POV Sans, Second person POV, Spoilers - No Mercy Route, Spoilers - Pacifist Route, sans is sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-05-08 00:31:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5476349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dumbkili/pseuds/dumbkili
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sans works a lot of jobs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. big brother

first and foremost your job title is ‘big brother’. it’s your number one prerogative. sometimes you think that if they stripped away everything on the outside of you- your jokes, your laughter, your guarded nature and your blue jacket- they would still be left with the words ‘big brother’ carved into the very magic of your soul.  

that’s who you are, now. papyrus’ big brother. except- and here’s the good part, the hilarious part, the part that just really keeps you up at night laughing so that you don’t cry- you’re not the first one to hold this position. it was handed down to you, just like everything got handed down to you, because you used to be a little brother once too.

it was a while ago- you’re not sure how long, but isn’t that the point of the whole thing, to not remember? anyway, it was a while ago and you were in the living room reading a quantum physics book, studying to pass your class to write your thesis to get your degree- and he, your brother, not papyrus but the bigger one whose name you sometimes (nearly always) forget came downstairs and started for the door, looking nervous and skittish and scared.

so you’d said, ‘sup bro?’ because it was the middle of the night (as if there was night down here, but it’s the principle of the thing) and he’d jumped in surprise and signed a bunch of things at you that were hard to read in the darkness of the house. something about taking a walk, not to worry, everything is fine. which was, in your cultured and experienced opinion, complete fucking bullshit.

and you’d asked where he was going and he’d reluctantly said ‘work’, his long fingers dancing in the dim lighting. and you’d asked why. and he hadn’t responded. and then he’d hesitated for a second and you felt this cold feeling in your fingers and toes and empty stomach, like a premonition, like you knew what he was going to say next.

‘take care of papyrus,’ he’d signed. ‘it’s your job now.’ and then he’d left before you could say _hey_ , before you could say _stop_ , before you could say _come_ _back_. he’d taken a shortcut but you knew that trick too, he’d taught you it, and you’d followed him into the core just in time to watch him fall. the next day you stumbled home and his bedroom was a guest room and all your pictures on the wall held two figures instead of three and papyrus didn’t notice that anything was wrong.

sometimes you forget what’s wrong, too. sometimes you go whole days- whole cycles- whole weeks thinking that this is all okay, that this is the way things are supposed to be, but then you see that silver key in your dresser and you go out back of the new house in snowdin- the town you’d moved to purely for the reason that it was far from the core and it was called _snowdin_ \- and you unlock the door and you remember, _shit_ , you _remember_.

_it’s your job now_ he’d said to you, and you’d never had a job before and you were scared. you used to be the middle brother, the one that was neither surrogate parent nor in need of constant care. you used to have no responsibilities besides maybe occasionally picking up your socks. now there’s nobody above you to tell you what to do (although papyrus seems to sense that there’s a hole that needs filling, and the sock thing does still get addressed).

being the oldest was never supposed to be on your metaphorical resumé and honestly you have no clue what the fuck it is you’re supposed to do. you drop out of school and move the two of you out of the city. you get odd jobs to help put papyrus through a two year college course. you settle down. what you want to forget, you don’t. what you don’t want to, you do.

you remember his face but not his name. you remember his favorite food but not his last words. you remember that he was older than you, but you don’t know his age. you spend hours puzzling over his blueprints, knowing they were written by him but unable to figure out what he was building. you copy the schematics anyway, building a machine that you keep covered in a tarp because you have no idea what to do with it and besides, it doesn’t work.

whatever. it’s not your job.

you’re ‘big brother’ down to your core (and haha, was that a pun? you really don’t know) but sometimes you don’t think you’re doing it right. you rib papyrus (that one _was_ a pun) and tease him and encourage him and tell him he’s cool, which is what you think you’re supposed to do, but honestly, who knows? you don’t teach him how to cook or help him study for finals or do the dishes. you just kinda… sit there. at least that’s what it feels like.

sometimes you think that maybe papyrus is the one who is maturing faster, and that you’re still stuck behind, frozen in that moment in time where you watched gaster tip over the ledge.

gaster.

gaster.

gaster.

his name was gaster and you’re _so_ _grateful_ that this is a timeline where you remember his name, because you have notes from other loops and resets and you know you aren’t always so lucky. you’re thinking about applying for a job in hotland because maybe, if you’re closer to the core, other memories will surface, but when you get there all you can smell is sulfur and hot metal and all you can see is a figure falling, not even reaching back up at you, no second thoughts, no remorse, so you tell undyne that you’ve changed your mind and you’ll stick to patrolling the forest, thanks. she gives you a weird look, but you get lots of those. you could start a collection.

well. if you didn’t do it this cycle, you’ll do it the next. but for now, you focus on your job.

big brother.

now, you can’t say that you like working but this is the one job you’ve never taken a single break from. maybe it’s because there’s no regulations in this line of work. you wonder offhandedly if you should unionize.

still, it’s not a very difficult job, per say. papyrus is an adult. he can take care of most basic things in the house (which is great, because now you don’t have to) and aside from the occasional bedtime story you don’t really have to do much. it kinda makes you feel… useless. a little bit. you feel like you’ve got big shoes to fill and that papyrus has noticed where you don’t measure up to someone he doesn’t even remember. you try not to let him know that anything is wrong. sometimes he sees you sneaking out of the house so you can be alone when you break down and you just grin at him and tell him to go back to sleep.

taking a walk, nothing to worry about, everything is fine.

your brother is naive but he’s not stupid and he sees the way you’re crumbling at the edges, but he doesn’t know how to help. you need him to slow down and he wants you to speed up, to try and outrun whatever it is that’s eating you up inside, and sometimes it’s like the two of you aren’t even speaking the same language anymore, each of you holding conversation with brick walls.

still, you’re his big brother. you’re the only one he’s got. so you suck it up and you do your fucking job, day after day, and it only wears you down a little bit in comparison to all the other shit you do.

you tell jokes to the lady behind the door and she asks you for a promise and you don’t just give those out like candy (you don’t give out candy, either), but something about what she’s asking you reminds you of

damn. you forgot his name again.

you promise, and she sounds so relieved as she thanks you over and over again, first in the conventional sense, and then through a series of increasingly hilarious jokes, and you idly let blue smoke twist its way out of your hands and into the air. you imagine for a second that you see a face in the random shapes it makes, but it’s gone again in an instant.

taking care of papyrus is your job. it is all that you are, some days. it’s not your only one, but it’s your best one.

**  
**hell, you don’t even get paid.


	2. bad killer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hm did i say 'daily updates' i meant i just want this story out of my head i dont even care about a proper schedule sorry

one day a kid walks out of the ruins covered in dust and shakes your hand. you don’t realize it at the time, but you just had a job interview. you wipe your hand on your jacket when you think they can’t see, because you don’t really wanna get on this kid’s bad side by offending them but damn if that gritty feeling isn’t disgusting.

geez, lady, you really know how to pick ‘em.

the kid doesn’t like puzzles, but that’s fine, you’re not a huge fan of them either and you’re not sure why (but at least you’ve got the will to _try_ puzzles before you completely write them off, unlike this thing). and hey, the kid’s apathy gives you a chance to brush up on your big brother skills. comforting papyrus has always been something you’re pretty good at.

you don’t think this kid is a human, and you tell them so. the lady wouldn’t have asked you to defend and protect someone as strange and icey and weird as this. you don’t think a human child has the fortitude to do what this thing does, either. you watch it kill a snowdrake from your hiding place behind a tree and feel ill. you teleport back to papyrus and tell him and the two of you rush into town and tell everybody to evacuate. then you both go back out to the puzzles to try and slow that thing down. it’s standard protocol when a monster gets too much LV.

what is not protocol, however, in either of your jobs (sentry and brother, guard and guardian), is papyrus actually _battling_ the thing. you don’t even realize it’s happening at the time, since you’re so busy getting the whole rabbit family onto the riverperson’s boat and teleporting grillby back to hotland because he can’t go through waterfall, but as soon as you get back to the empty town, you realize.

you hold his scarf in his hands and realize that you’re unemployed. you think back to the man who hired you for this job- and this cycle you think you’ve remembered that he was barely a man when he died, hardly older than you are now- and you feel regret, because you failed him. you failed both of them.

you were wrong before, when you thought this kid wasn’t human. you know now that there is nothing else they can possibly be.

it takes the kid a couple days to slaughter their way through waterfall, and a few more to slice hotland to shreds. some people put up a fight, but it’s not enough. your soul aches as you watch undyne melt and shatter, as alphys flees, as mettaton tries and just can’t stop the tide of dust and lost souls. you weren’t very close to any of them- but papyrus was, and knowing how upset he’d feel makes you feel something similar to misery.

you know you have to stop them. that’s your new job. you know you have to, but you don’t want to. well, you do, actually. you want to kill them. but you don’t want LOVE, you don’t want EXP. still, needs must.

quantum physics and the nature of space time was going to be your thesis before you dropped out of school, and you know what this kid can do. you know how dangerous they could be, even if they didn’t kill anybody. you know that they can just repeat all your attacks a thousand times over, until they’ve memorized every line, every bone, every laser blast, and they can tear you down in an instant. you hope that they get bored before that happens.

they enter the hallway with a big smile on their face and dust on their hands and death in their eyes, and you fight them. you fight them and it’s easy, because whatever they had been expecting, it sure as hell wasn’t what they got.

people always did underestimate you.

you shoot a femur bone at them and they’re too slow and they look you _dead_ in the eyes as their soul shatters and they fall backwards, tiny arms spread-eagled on the golden floor. this is what you are now, you realize. not a brother anymore, but a killer. a murderer just like them. does intention count when you take a life? does your desire to save lives through bloodshed outweigh their love of pure destruction? you don’t know. it doesn’t matter anyway. there’s a wavery-wobbly moment in time and suddenly you’re standing in the corridor with an enormous sense of déjà vu.

the kid walks in, fuming, not smiling but merely baring their teeth, like an animal, like a predator.

you kill them again.

this is your job. killer, killer, killer. this is their job too. you’re both good. but one of you is better. right now you’ve got the upper hand but somewhere around their 100th try you think the scales are starting to shift in their favor. there’s a war behind their eyes, though, and you try to appeal to it, offering mercy once a battle and waiting to see if they take it. even in this, however, you’re still doing your job. you’re breaking the rules, but you don’t care.

the battle goes on, both within the kid and without, and even though for you it always feels like the first time, you’re good at reading faces and you know you’ve both been here for a while. you feel proud to have trapped them like this, with nothing behind them and no way to move forward, and you’re glad that your plan is working so that you can do your job.

killer.

once, and only once, they accept your mercy. whatever is going on in their head tips in a way it has never tipped before and they tear up, dropping their knife and rushing to hug you. you feel disgusting as you send the razor sharp bones into their back.  for a second you wait for them to turn into dust and then you laugh jaggedly when you remember that humans don’t do that. their bodies linger on. they leave so much behind. you tell the kid to get dunked on and their corpse stares at you accusingly. their soul is broken but you know they’re still listening so you lower your voice and tell them not to come back.

but of course, they do anyway.

killer, killer, killer. you’re getting so good at this. you think the kid might be tired of your monologue by now but you give it anyway, just to piss them off. it’s your job to piss them off enough to make a mistake so you can swoop in and break them, shatter them, snap their spine and spill their blood and guts across the gold tiles.

you hate them. you hate yourself.

is that funny? hell if you know, but you smile anyway, because it’s just as much your job to smile as it is to kill, to maim, to fire lasers at the kid until their skull is as bare and grinning as your own, just as much your job as it was to be a brother, but you royally fucked that one up, didn’t you, so now you’re stuck with this.

but you’re tired. and you don’t like this job. you’re getting, like, _negative_ health benefits and the overtime pay is nonexistent; your coworker is a nightmare and your workspace is headache-inducing. so many bright colors. red on gold on your own brilliant blue.

so you quit, because the kid obviously isn’t going to. you stop fighting. you don’t want to kill. what you want is to keep the human right here, stuck, nothing behind them and no way to move forward, just like you planned.

“why are you doing this?” you ask, after a few minutes of tense silence while your ‘special attack’ goes on and on. they look at you with nothing but pure hate, and spit a broken tooth onto the tile.

“because,” they croak, their voice obviously underused. “i have to.” they try to rush you for the third time in as many minutes but you catch them neatly and shove them backwards with your magic. “why are you doing this?” they shoot back at you in frustration. “there’s nothing left for you down here! just let me kill you!”

the offer is tempting, you have to admit.

“can’t,” you say, shrugging. “it’s my job.”

there are no more words exchanged between the two of you and the next thing you hear is their laughter, high and clear, as you stare down at the clean, straight gash across your ribcage. that ketchup you’d drank earlier is leaking out, staining your jacket, and for some reason the only thing you can think is _damn. better go get more._ you might be in shock but you don’t care. you’re about to die, anyway. you bid farewell to the kid as best you’re able, and are surprised (and mildly pleased) to see that the war has started up again in their eyes. there’s a struggle going on there. maybe one day, in another cycle, you’ll see the other side of it.

you stumble out into the hallway and sink down, your back against one wall. peering down the corridor, you think you see them- both of them, both of the brothers you’ve lost. they’re both so tall, shit, you feel like the odd one out. papyrus reaches out a hand to you and you ask him if he wants anything from grillby’s (which is where you’re going, right after you take a short rest) but before he can answer you, you’re nothing but dust on the wind like everybody else in the god damn underground.

 **  
**you’ve retired.


	3. good friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know it's been 8 months since i first published this and im sorry. things just kinda got away from me and also i started writing this when i was in a really bad place, mentally speaking, which is maybe why those first 2 chapters were...like..that. anyway. this third one is the longest, definitely, and i cld spend 2 more days editing it or i cld just admit i feel guilty about abandoning this and publish it right away

one day a kid walks out of the ruins and they’re scared and holding a stick like it’s a security blanket. you shake their hand. you don’t know it at the time, but you just had a job interview. when you think they aren’t looking you absently rub your fingers together, searching for any trace amounts of gritty dust. you don’t know why you think it would be there. it isn’t.

 

they’re a human. that’s hilarious. you don’t know why.

 

papyrus likes them instantly because they like his puzzles, although he won’t admit it. he keeps asking you why he feels like he knows them. you don’t know. you were thinking the same thing, wondering at this kid’s familiarity the same way one would look at mushrooms in the forest and rack their brains trying to remember if these ones are poisonous.

 

you’ve got notes to yourself from the last cycle, whatever it was, and it looks bad. it’s very unclear what happened, and you try to convince yourself that the stains on the paper are from grease picked up from grillby’s and not tears. you can’t remember much, and you’ve learned a long time ago not to get hung up on old loops; it’ll just make you crazier than you already are. you try not to think about the scraps of paper crumpled up in your jacket pocket as you watch the kid march through the snow.

 

they do all the puzzles, even your babybones wordsearch, hunting out the answers with a stump of a pencil that they have in their pocket. they look so cold and small, surrounded by ice, hunched over the paper, and you kind of want to give them your jacket to warm them up. but there’s something in you that protests fiercely to even the thought of giving this kid something that you own, so you don’t.

 

you watch them laugh at a snowdrake’s pun and feel like whatever is going on here, it’s something good, something you need to help along.

 

you tell them the secret to papyrus’ blue attack and think that maybe somewhere in the past couple hours you’ve gotten a new job, one that pays about as well as ‘brother’ and has only slightly better hours.

 

you’re a friend.

 

the next few days are peaceful compared to something that you can’t remember for the life of you and you watch as the kid- what’s their name?- befriends literally everyone they come across, even undyne. you take them to dinner to congratulate them on making it to hotland (even though it sets your teeth on edge just to be in this building, so close to the core). maybe you get a little intense for a second but hey, it happens, you’re a scary guy. you expect the kid to at least look a little put off but you’re not at all prepared for the look that they give you. there’s a war behind their eyes.

 

you wonder if you’ve already seen the other side of it.

 

you joke that they haven’t died a single time and their eyes flick down to the tabletop and you think, _oh shit._ looks like you’re not as good at this new job as you thought. then suddenly you really, _really_ need to get out of this building so you say bye to the kiddo and take a shortcut back to the forest outside snowdin. you sit down with your back against the great purple door but can’t bring yourself to knock.

 

your phone rings. it’s alphys. you don’t know why she’s calling you, because you both hate talking on the phone, but you answer it anyway. she tells you that the human is about to enter the last corridor so, ‘you know. i-if you’re going to do it. y-you should go now.’ you sigh and thank her for the heads up and almost wonder if she means something that she doesn’t, because you feel like there’s many different things you can do in the last corridor but only one of them is your job so you hang up and you go.

 

the corridor is golden and it gives you a headache and the kid walking towards you wears a locket and a war in their eyes and clean hands. and you tell them what you’re supposed to say; you trot out the lines like every time a human makes it this far, because not only are you a sentry, you are a judge. you applied for the job because it gave you a boost in salary at the sentry station and you were assured that you would probably never have to do anything anyway.

 

haha.

 

you finish your speech and the kid looks at you and signs with their hands, in a language you cannot remember learning but somehow understand anyway.

 

‘why are you here?’

 

you shrug. “it’s my job.”

 

the kid gives you a look that’s foreign and familiar all at the same time and you kind of don’t like where this is going and suddenly there’s this feeling like déjà vu and they look different, somehow. you ask them if they’re a time traveler on a whim and can barely contain your surprise (and amusement) when they give you not one, but two ‘secret passwords’. you don’t have any secret passwords, not really, but kudos to yourself for getting the kid to say those with a straight face.

 

you figure fair’s fair, and they seem to be expecting something anyway, but you don’t really have anything to give them except for the key to your room. so that’s what they get. something at the back of your skull reminds you that you’ve got something in the dresser, something that leads to a bigger something, which leads to another something, which leads to him-

 

but there’s no guarantee the kid will even find the first something anyway. and you’re busy doing your job right now, thanks very much, and they’re walking in the other direction. so it’s okay that they have your key, because you’re a friend (their friend) and this is your job. being friendly is what you _do_ now.

 

a piece of you points out that the kid’s heading straight for asgore and probably won’t live long enough to have _dinner_ , let alone long enough to go back to your _house_. you ignore it. now is not the fucking time.

 

you watch the kid disappear into the doorway at the end of the hallway and feel your bones itch. you look around the golden hall and realize that you really, really, _really_ don’t want to be here anymore. which is a real goddamn shame by the way, because objectively it’s beautiful. the mimicry of sunlight, of faint birdsong- it must have cost asgore a fortune to have done. but something’s off about it, something’s not right. you keep seeing flashes of red against the golden tiles out of the corner of your eye that disappear when you turn to look. it makes you want to vomit, which is hilarious because you don’t even have a stomach.

 

is it actually hilarious? you can’t tell.

 

you send alphys a quick text- ‘it’s done’- and take a shortcut to grillby’s to get a fucking drink. or at least to commiserate with someone about something, anything. not what’s actually bothering you of course, but just. something.

 

sometimes you wonder how it would go, if you actually talked to someone about this. _haha dude, here’s another joke, i think i used to have a brother that killed himself in front of me and i can’t stop seeing his face in the light of our kitchen and i was studying so i could write my thesis and get my degree and he just fuckin’_ died _man he just_

 

or, even better:

 

 _i think i’ve killed a child, but only because they were trying to kill me_.

 

the kicker:

 

 _i think i actually care about them now_.

 

the kid breaks the barrier and you see the sun for the first time and you _watch_ the weight of responsibility settle on the kid- frisk’s- shoulders as they nod yes to asgore’s job proposal. how does it feel, you wonder, to have that shoved on you? how does it feel to know that the hopes and dreams of not one species but two rest on your shoulders? hell. you only got saddled with the weight of one little brother and you nearly collapsed.

 

he’s thriving up here- papyrus. he loves the wind and sunshine and grass and humans and the unique sensation of driving a really nice car really fast down vast empty stretches of road. you mostly like lying on the ground and waiting for it all to go away.

 

‘like’ is a strong word for it, but it’s what you find yourself doing most days, so you figure you may as well pretend to enjoy it.

 

haha.

 

the world is so big that it scares you. you, who thought fear was a distant memory. the sky is too large and the oceans are too deep and one day you take a shortcut to the north pole just because you can and promptly have a panic attack alone in the snow because the sheer _bigness_ overwhelms you to the point of tunnel vision.

 

at least underground you knew who you _were_. you had jobs, roles, parts to play. big brother, part time hot dog salesman, amateur comedian. sentry, judge, common citizen. something else, too, something that flashes across the fucked-up surface of your consciousness almost as often as the almost-memory of _him_ , something that has to do with red splashed across gold and lit with crackly electric blue. not all pleasant jobs, obviously. but you did them, because you had to, and you knew you had to. those roles- they were necessary.

 

maybe not the amateur comedian part.

 

the point is this: now you are stuck. you think, vaguely, that you still might hold the position of friend, but you’re not sure if it was a part time job to begin with or if you’ve been replaced for a newer model or what. frisk is busy with a lot of shit lately, like school and formal diplomacy training and learning how to ride a bike. you’re kind of glad they’re not around too much actually, because sometimes when they are, you see a war behind their eyes. it’s been months since the final battle for monsters ended, but frisk is still fighting.

 

what exactly it is they’re up against, you’d rather not know.

 

it’s been a year and you think you’re doing good and then undyne gives frisk a multitool for a present and it’s got three different kinds of knives on it and you have to excuse yourself as quickly as possible. you don’t expect them to follow you but somehow you’re not surprised when they do.

 

‘what’s wrong?’ they sign to you and for a moment you consider signing back, just to see the confusion on their face, but you don’t because you’re out of practice and in some senses never learned in the first place and you’d rather not embarrass yourself even further.

 

“nothing,” you say, and you’re being honest here because it really _is_ nothing, in this timeline, in this cycle. nothing is wrong. taking a walk, not to worry, everything is fine. your jacket feels heavier than it should be and you’re worrying the hem of one sleeve, trying to wash off tacky red blood that isn’t there. it’s a nervous habit. you’ve got a lot of those.

 

‘you’re lying.’

 

“am not,” you insist and frisk rolls their eyes at you. they’ve never been good at letting things go. in this timeline it’s an endearing tenacity, but in others you think you didn’t really consider it a positive trait.

 

fucking determination.

 

‘you know i’m here for you right?’ they sign and you nearly walk away right then and there because if that isn’t the most cheesy, bullshit, unhelpful way of trying to be supportive that was ever invented you’ll eat your hat. it’s funny because you don’t even have one.

 

“yeah, sure.”

 

‘no, really!’

 

“i said sure, frisk.” all of a sudden you need them to understand something. not everything, just- something. something that won’t bite you in the ass if they lose that war they’re fighting behind their eyes. you shoot them a glance out of the corner of your eye. “you know you can’t fix everything, right?”

 

they hesitate, shrug one shoulder. ‘i guess i can’t.’

 

“you know you can’t fix _me_?” you say, and honestly, why the fuck are you telling this to a child? they’re like, thirteen. maybe less. but they’re also the same body that you held in your arms, full of the same blood that splashed across golden tiles like paint. you need them to understand at least this much- that you are unfixable. because they’re too determined to ever fucking give up otherwise.

 

they look at you and you wonder vaguely if this is it- the moment you both realize what you both know. the moment you make eye contact and say, _i killed you_. the moment where they do the same.

 

but it’s not, not yet at least, because they just blink and shake their head and generally seem to be at a loss for words and honestly you can’t blame them because you are too. you were never supposed to be in this situation- it was never, ever the plan. you were gonna study to pass your classes to write your thesis to get your degree and then he came downstairs backlit from the kitchen and said

 

damn, you forgot.

 

‘i wish i could.’

 

“could what?”

 

‘fix it. whatever it is. make it better,’ they sign and that- that sets your teeth on edge right there and you clench your fists in your pockets to stop your magic from leaking out and smashing something. the kid can fix it, alright- they can fix whatever they want to. they can go back again and again and again until even you forget about cycles, until sunlight is a distant dream and there’s dust staining the whole underground. and then, once that happens, they can go back and fix it again and do it right this time and have this conversation with you _again_ and you wouldn’t know.

 

maybe that’s what’s already happened.

 

“why?” you grit out and you’re not even sure what you’re asking anymore. why you, why me, why papyrus in the snow when he offered mercy. why undyne and why toriel and why’d they keep coming back to that golden corridor so many fucking times. why do they want to fix you, why do you need fixing.

 

‘because you’re my friend.’ frisk looks strange as their hands shape the words, like they’re not only trying to convince you of this but themself as well. hints of that war flicker across their face and you barely stop yourself from flinching. it’s never gone beyond their eyes before- that struggle. you’ll ask them about it someday, probably, and you’re definitely not going to like what they tell you.

 

“sure, kid,” you say casually and yeah, okay, you can do this. you can do this job- of being frisk’s friend. it’s better and easier than practically every other job you’ve had and nobody had to die for you to get it. you can do this. you can crack jokes, babysit on weekends, pick them up from school, surprise them with a trip to the arcade. you can be normal, at least for a little while. that sounds nice, actually. “i’m your friend,” you finish and that’s that, the contract is sealed. you don’t give out promises like candy (you don’t normally give out candy either, but maybe for frisk you’d make an exception) but you can promise to do this.

  
shit, maybe this time you’ll even get some kind of a dental plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i changed my url! im now deadtucks on tumblr.fuck so come check me out if u wanna

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is cipherye.tumblr.com
> 
> if you read my fic 'let's see what we can do' just know that this fic isnt explicitly connected to that one, but it can be read as being in the same au if you want (if i make a lswwcd series i might at this one to it, undecided so far)
> 
> will be updated as close to daily as i can manage !!!!


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